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[Addon] Video Sequencer -> Easy logging

De-rushing and logging video footage - as you know - is not the strong point of Blender. It's a shame because It's a basic need for everyone and it prevent people from using Blender as NLE.

Store a IN and OUT point for each clip as well as a serie of TAGS

Björn Sonnenschein made an Addon that stores the In and OUT point in a scene for each clip. It's really well done but unfortunately, it isn't compliant with my editing habits (I use scenes a lot and need them to be clean and tidy).

What it does :

Tag system : add as many TAGS to your clips as needed. This is a serious need when you de-rush a big amount of footage. Then it's easy to find and pick the clip you need when editing.

3 point editing (in and out). The metadata are stored in the 3d-view as empties' custom properties. That makes the importation of your de-rushing and logging very easy from one scene to another (CTRL-L) or from one project to another (Append all the objects). Also in addition to define the IN and OUT point, you can modify your clip, add anything you want and pack all this into a metastrip.

A log-file (list of tags, list of clips per tag, list of clips per folder). This is the text document I use and share wih co-workers.

Also I borrowed a nice function from the code of Björn Sonnenschein, I hope he won't be mad at me ! Thank you Bjorn !
I heard that the rewritting of the sequencer was on the BLender 2.7x'roadmap, I hope we will find natively similar functionnalities in a future release

in fact, a clip is still considered as a file, means you can not split a file into several clips and tag them differently. In the case of your interview, the plugin won't be of any help, i am afraid... actually I wrote the script in a hurry, last year when I had to de-rush tons of footage. It's more a crutch than a new leg.

To sum up, a file should be able to receive several set of in-out-tags. mh... regarding the way metadata are stored, it seems very doable.

meanwhile

Yesterday I wrote the insert-edit function*, as you suggested. It's not buggy, but it does crash Blender , I have to investigate a little.

So far, here's how it works :
1- When the clip is inserted, the right side of the channel slides to the right
2- Optionnaly when the clip is inserted, the right side of the whole timeline slides to the right
3- If the edited clip has more than one row, it's packed into a metastrip before being inserted

Dual screen
Also, I didn't mention it yet but people working with two screens can uncheck the "local Edit" box to have the editing table in one side and the main timeline on the other, like most NLE. Here's a screencast :

When I try to edit more than one shot from the same source clip, will your addon recreate a new scene each time? Or just refer to the first instance that was created? If the latter, perhaps you could convert previous Tag decisions into color effect strips that hide below the Video of the camera strip? They could have unique names the same as the Tag and they could overlap if needed. This way the In/Out points are stored with some simple metadata.
As you add overlapping Tags the other strips would have to move vertically to another channel.

Cheers, David ___________"awesome in space and other places".
________Follow me on twitter @3pointedit
_____________ Check the Youtube Channel for tutorials. Or my Sketchbook

To create a simple function takes many many others? Oh. I thought that with the select strips to the right you could increment their start locations by the duration of the tag to insert. Then place the new tag. But it would be more complex if creating an edit in the middle of an existing strip at a given location.

No, in fact I got it working fine. It's exactly as you say. When it's in middle of a strip, I just give it a cut before moving all to the right.

SUBCLIP

When I try to edit more than one shot from the same source clip, will your addon recreate a new scene each time? Or just refer to the first instance that was created?

This color idea is great but I don't need to create a scene for every clip. Instead, metadata are stored in empties as custom properties. So it is not too intrusive. Everytime you edit a clip, the "editing" scene is created or cleaned-up, then the script import all the new data into it. The only thing I need to do is to parent a new empty to the original with an other set of in-out-tag+colour.

Just random thinking out loud here... Could you have a point cloud of empties (Tag metadata) and interact with them in 3D space to reconstruct an alternate VSE timeline?

It's an art concept...

Perhaps using z direction for hierarchy you could apply physics to shuffle the Tag Cloud, this would produce a generative sequence in the VSE. If the scale of the empty could be interacted with (in 3D) then this could change the speed or opacity of the VSE strip.

Any way just an OT thought

Cheers, David ___________"awesome in space and other places".
________Follow me on twitter @3pointedit
_____________ Check the Youtube Channel for tutorials. Or my Sketchbook

Haha, nice idea ! At this point, we wouldn't need the sequencer anymore. I could picture a live video 3d editing Theremin Addon.....!! (leap controlled)

That said, those metadata could be very usefull and provide unique tools. I made a tiny script that picks a portion of random clips from a tag-scene and arrange them at a given pace, and add a music. With few editing you can get a descent sequence.